ADVENT I A

                                       1st Sunday of Advent A

  Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5           Romans 13:11-14        Matthew 24:37-44

            In the Advent Season of preparation for the celebration of Christ’s Nativity each Gospel reading has a distinctive theme: the Lord’s coming at the end of time (First Sunday of Advent), the ministry of John the Baptist, the precursor of the Messiah (Second and Third Sundays), and the events that prepared immediately for the Lord’s birth (Fourth Sunday).  The Old Testament readings are prophecies about the Messiah or the Messianic age, especially from the Book of Isaiah.  The second readings from an apostolic letter contain exhortations and proclamations, in keeping with the themes of Advent: alertness in preparation for the coming of the Lord.
During the dark days of December, we Christians begin our Advent vigil by watching for the light and longing for the coming of God's kingdom of justice and peace in the Messiah Jesus.  With our Jewish ancestors and the early Christian community, we are called to live in hope and eager expectation.  As we listen to Isaiah's vision of peace for Judah and the city of Jerusalem, let us pray in the words of the responsorial psalm for peace in all the world's cities and nations.
            Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
                        May those who love you prosper!
                        May peace be within your walls,
                        prosperity in your buildings.  (Ps 122:6‑7)
            Although the prophet Isaiah lived through the Assyrian invasions which destroyed the kingdom of Israel and reduced Judah and Jerusalem to "a waste, like Sodom overthrown" (Is 1:9), his vision for the future is filled with hope for a world peace established by God.  Isaiah envisions a time when "the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest mountain."  Then the world's war weary nations will decide to pilgrimage to the Lord's temple mountain in Jerusalem in order to be instructed “in his ways."  And the Lord "shall judge between the nations" so that they will turn their weapons into instruments of productive agriculture.     
                        They shall beat their swords into plowshares
                        and their spears into pruning hooks;
                        one nation shall not raise the sword against another,
                        nor shall they train for war again.
Isaiah concludes with an invitation to the "house of Jacob" and to us: "let us walk in the light of the Lord."
            Paul's exhortation to the Romans continues this Sunday's light theme and offers us a pattern for living in the season of Advent.  Paul believed in the imminent return of the Lord Jesus to complete God's kingdom, and therefore he warns the Roman Christians: "the night is advanced, the day is at hand."  He urges them "to wake from sleep" and "throw off deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."   They are to live honorably as in daylight and are to avoid carousing and drunkenness, sexual excess and lust, quarreling and jealousy.

            The Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Advent is always from Jesus' apocalyptic sermons in Jerusalem just before his trial and death.  In these sermons Jesus speaks of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and his later triumphant return as the Son of Man to complete God's kingdom.  During this year the Church does the A cycle of readings which feature Matthew's Gospel, and so this Sunday we read from his version of Jesus' apocalyptic discourse.
            In this section Jesus warns his disciples that they cannot know the day the Lord is coming.  Since the time is unknown, those who await Jesus' return must not make the mistake of the flood generation, when people were so totally unconcerned that “they were eating and drinking, marrying and being married, up to the day Noah entered the ark.”  Because they were unprepared, “the flood came and carried them away.”  Christians who live in the expectation of Jesus' coming cannot simply continue life as usual; they must “stay awake” and “be prepared” like the owner of a house who knows a thief is coming.            
            Perhaps, there is no better way to maintain this alertness than to live by the words that Isaiah puts on the lips of the nations in his vision.
            "Come, let us climb the Lord's mountain,
                        To the house of the God of Jacob,
                        That he may instruct us in his ways,
                        And we may walk in his paths."  (Isa 2:3)